He knew instinctively that Anita Richmond was not talking to him simply because she had sold him a ticket to a dance and because her father might have pointed him out.

He felt sure that there was something else behind it,--the feeling of a debt which she owed him, a feeling of companionship engendered upon a sunlit road, during the moments of stress, and the continuance of that meeting in those few moments in the drug store, when he had handed her back her ten-dollar bill.

She had called herself a cad then, and the feeling that she perhaps had been abrupt toward a man who had helped her out of a disagreeable predicament was prompting her action now; Fairchild felt sure of that.
And he was glad of the fact, very glad.

Again he laughed, while Rodaine eyed him narrowly.

Fairchild shrugged his shoulders.
"I 'm not going to believe this story until it's proven to me," came calmly.